Guess the word to beat the Alphabot.

In 2013 I was lucky to spend six months doing something completely different. Smartphone games were exploding in popularity, made profitable by revenue generated via in-app purchases. I led a small team to create a word-based iPhone game called Alphabot. The premise was simple: figure out words of increasing length and obscurity in as few guesses as possible. Clues showed where you’d guessed individual letters correctly. Players could win points and virtual prizes on their quest to beat the Alphabot, playing individually or against Facebook friends. The game of word knowledge and deduction was brought to life with a retro UI, animations, music and sound effects. Extra clues and retro skins were available via in-app purchase. I absolutely loved the game and it achieved modest success but never went truly viral - it turns out game development is tough!